Kissing Cloud
by wwgost
Summary: Reno has a bit of an inner debate.  Warnings for sex and language.


Kissing Cloud

* * *

_I'm wild again beguiled again  
A simpering whimpering child again  
Bewitched bothered and bewildered am I_

_Couldn't sleep and wouldn't sleep  
Till love came and told me I shouldn't sleep  
Bewitched bothered and bewildered am I. _ Boz Scaggs, Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered

* * *

Reno slams down the glass in one more ineffective attempt to settle the ongoing argument between his penis and his brain. The fight has raged since puberty but has recently been complicated by the unreliable voice of his heart.

Damn Cloud Strife, anyway.

Rude adds his vote, a raised eyebrow. "Ask him out, if that isn't too functionally direct for you. Tifa says he isn't exactly enjoying the local dating scene."

The thought of Cloud on a date makes him feel…something. He orders another whiskey and swallows the amber liquid before the burn of the first has dissipated in his chest.

Cloud on a date. Do they meet for drinks? Small talk? See a movie, go to dinner? Go back to his place? Kiss?

Two weeks ago, drunk, Cloud had kissed him. They were walking back to Reno's apartment, Cloud just making sure Reno "got there all right" since he was shithammered, and for no reason at all, Cloud had kissed him. It hadn't been his birthday, not even Flag Day for fuck's sake, just a random Tuesday and Cloud had kissed him. It hadn't been the chaste kiss of friends either. Okay, it hadn't exactly been a tonsil check but it had been a real kiss and Reno's body parts had been in a knock down dragout fight ever since.

Does he kiss his other dates?

"I'll call him," he promises Rude. The only response is a nod of the bald head, for which Reno is grateful. He is grateful for his friend's acceptance of him on his own terms, a rare and valuable quality. He suspects it is what is behind his partner's few words; he simply does not need them. "Thanks."

* * *

The voice on the other end of the phone the next morning is still heavy with sleep and he hears the rustle of bedclothes. Reno wonders what it is like to roll over and smell Cloud's essence on the pillowcases. His heart and his dick win temporarily with a coalition vote.

* * *

He sprawls his lanky frame over the futon in Cloud's loft, a piece of pizza in one hand and a beer in the other. He reflects that it has been too damn long. Issues aside, he has simply missed his friend. They finish each others' sentences and remember that they hate all the same people, love all the same food. It is balm to Reno's soul. He wonders how he has lived without this, it is like oxygen. Reno's brain reminds him to thank Rude for being right.

Their conversation drifts to the Greater Midgar Gay Dating Scene which Cloud describes as neither metropolitan nor great. Reno is surprised at his lack of jealousy. Listening to Cloud's tales of hilariously self absorbed men, Reno can't help but think that it's not _their_ fault they could not measure up. This is Cloud, after all. They laugh until they weep.

They walk back from the corner pub, holding each other up for a bit. Neither can explain the urge to go out but they had done so by silent agreement. A pleasant drunkenness buzzes through Reno's body, much like the night Cloud had kissed him. Reno leans against Cloud's door hoping he will do it again, only to lose his balance when Cloud unlocks and opens the door.

The futon pitches under his intoxication and walking home seems impossible. His host reaches over him to lower the futon's back so he can sleep there. And topples drunkenly over him.

It is so _contrived_, so late night sitcom, so utterly _them_, they don't even pause to laugh and roll their eyes but instead do so while flowing into each other like the whiskey he can still taste in Cloud's mouth. His weight on him is more than Reno remembers and he protests on the grounds of their obvious intoxication.

"We're drunk."

"What?"

"Nothing. Just my brain." They go back to kissing.

* * *

Reno wakes on the futon, smelling bacon and wondering where he left his pants. Lacking an answer to the latter question, he stretches and heads for the bathroom, naked as the day he was born. He later locates his jeans draped over an end table and pulls them on.

He is sure breakfast is delicious but it cannot compare to the spectacle before him. Cloud in sleep pants, slung low over his slim hips, washing dishes. Reno watches him in the morning light. He takes his time; there no hurry as he slides his eyes over every inch of the beautiful man in front of him.

Reno's brain has left the building.

"You done?"

"Huh?"

"With breakfast."

Reno thinks the dishes can wait, and that his new lover is warm and soft. He grazes his hand over flannel worn soft as silk covering a muscular thigh, peppering soft kisses over the back of his neck and making lazy circles across his waist.

"Bedroom, yo."

Cloud leans back into him and puts down a glass before he breaks it. Reno moves his strokes around to the front, to his growing erection. He thinks they fit together too well for it to be an accident.

Cloud's bedroom is cool and dark, gentle on Reno's budding hangover. The sheets are crisp and musky and electric on his nude skin.

"Sore?" Cloud asks. Reno considers lying, just to feel the sweet insanity of Cloud filling him again but in the end nods. "Just a little." Cloud grins and crawls on top of him, one hand in his hopelessly tangled hair and one on his shaft, wrapping around him in gentle but knowing strokes.

Cloud is _good_ at this.

He stops to kiss him—how that kiss has changed in a couple short weeks—and slicks Reno's now painful erection. Reno is sure the expression on his face is priceless as he watches Cloud's gorgeous body lower to ride him. And ride him. Only some dim sense of fair play reminds Reno to pay attention to Cloud as well because being gripped in that perfect muscular heat is killing him.

He is coming. He manages only a groan in warning but it's okay. Groan is apparently spoken here and Reno watches Cloud's hand join his own; the sight of Cloud touching himself short circuits something in him. Reno knows only the clenching and shuddering around him and comes harder than he ever has in his life; he fears his scream is loud enough to alarm the neighbors.

When he comes back to himself, Cloud is still there. The room is still there. He had feared it would be destroyed in an explosion, somehow. But Cloud is lying beside him, still kissing him.

"We should do that again. Soon. We are doing that again, right?" Reno wonders where sex this awesome has been all his life.

"That and more. I love you."

Reno thinks he could die here in this soft dark Cloud scented bed, drowning in the too many pillows and the comforter he can barely see over. He wonders if they make an air freshener he could take home so his whole apartment smells like this, so his clothes smell like this. He feels Cloud's heartbeat under his hand. "I love you too."

He sleeps.


End file.
